Just after 8:00pm Ventura, California I was driving home from a business meeting on the northbound 101 freeway when I noticed a small hazy red-orange glow of light hovering over the ocean in the north-western sky. Given the color I assumed I was looking at the moon obscured by a cloud of smoke; as a resident of California it is a phenomenon I have seen often enough. The depth of color was indicative of a very dense, very close fire so for safety sake I scanned the inland sky hoping to locate the source but I saw no plume of trailing smoke and there weren’t even clouds in the sky. Several things crossed my mind then, it was too early in the evening for the moon to be in a setting position over the ocean, the new moon had just passed so the sliver of moon visible wouldn’t be as large as what I had just seen and lastly the moon wouldn’t be setting in that location of the sky anyway. So when I looked back at the light it was a little disconcerting to notice it had grown larger and brighter and was definitely taki! ng on an orb like shape. I was driving so I had to alternate between watching the road and watching the orb and each time I looked back at the orb it appeared larger and brighter as if it were coming toward me which meant that it was moving inland in an easterly direction. At one point when I looked the orb had changed shape, like a tear drop on its side with the pointed tip in the tail position and it was moving parallel to me only in the opposite direction (southbound) there were also three small lights visible at the top. Because of those small lights I thought “Oh it’s a passenger plane.” I wanted some kind of confirmation so I looked for the fuselage knowing that if I could see the lights of the passenger windows I should be able to see the plane itself but there was no plane and the whole thing was still glowing orange. It continued southward and I watched it move across the sky until I was almost looking over my shoulder out the driver side window and the glow sta! rted to dissipate then it vanished at a point where my eye cau! ght sigh t of a star in the sky.

The whole incident took no more than two or three minutes and I wasn’t the only one who saw this; there were 15 other vehicles in front of me and several behind. I watched the orb disappear then turned my full attention back to my driving and realized everyone had slowed down to watch the strange lights in the sky.